Ellis, West Side offense light up the sky in rout

Gary West Side (right) and Gary Lew Wallace get ready to battle.
(Leslie Adkins/Post-Tribune)

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GARY -- West Side has a neat way of celebrating every time the Cougars score a touchdown. One of the West Side staff members walks to the north end zone, firecracker in hand, and lights up what would be a very loud response every time the Side gets six.

Apparently the Wallace cheerleaders did not get the memo on this, because after West Side scored what would be the fifth of its six touchdowns for the game, the firecracker went off and the Hornets cheerleaders, apparently still not used to it, all but ran for cover.

West Side quarterback Antonio Ellis would eventually see to it that Sept. 26 was more like July 4, throwing three TD passes while running for another as the Cougars beat Wallace 44-0, giving a happy ending to the Cougars' homecoming. It also gives West Side (2-3, 2-0 in Northwestern Conference) some momentum into a huge matchup next week.

"We needed this and with it being homecoming, too, this was big," Ellis said. "We blocked better and we were more into it. This is a real big win because we have Morton next week and we need confidence to beat a team that's not in our conference."

Ellis' best game of the season was so impressive that he even turned the normally hum-drum two-point conversion attempt into a conversation piece. 

After Tevon Brown's 30-yard run made it 12-0, Ellis took the snap for the conversion and put a move on two Wallace defenders that even Allen Iverson would envy. Two sets of broken ankles later, West Side was up 14-0 and the rout was on.

"That was just reaction," Elis said. "On plays like that you don't think, you just react."

Marquis Nichols was the recipient of two Ellis aerial reactions for touchdowns of 45 and 35 yards, while Brian Burton caught a TD score from 20 yards out for the Cougars, who won their second straight, both by shutout. They blanked Wirt 22-0 last week.

"It feels good to win on our home field," Burton said.  "Defense won this game for us. The DBs stepped up, the line did good and the line showed up."

For the Hornets, who had not played for two weeks before Friday, it's the third time they've been shut out this season, but they did have a positive, if unnoticed, moment late in the fourth quarter. 

Wallace was moving the ball on its final possession when an incomplete pass was thrown but the game clock kept running.

A good number of Wallace fans and players noticed it and yelled up to the press box to stop the clock. Of course,  by IHSAA rules, if a team has a 40-point lead, the clock keeps running, but what  Wallace faithful lacked in knowing that rule, they made up for in not wanting to quit. Still for some players, that was not enough.

"West Side is a real good team, but we have to play smart," said lineman Stephan Rodgers. "If we would have played smart, we would have had a chance to beat them.

"Our heads just weren't in the game and that's why we lost. We just have to do better."